Living in a climate as rainy as ours, it is easy to take water for granted. But having grown up in the drought-prone prairies, I find the abundance of water in this part of B.C. to be one of it many charms.
Water is one of the most fundamental services that nature provides us. However much we divert and pollute streams, once they flow to the oceans and their water evaporates into clouds, the water becomes purified and ready again for human use when it falls back to the land in the form of rain or snow.
Water sustains all life and our survival depends on a plentiful supply of it.
The provincial government is now in the final stages of consulting with the public before modernizing our Water Act, first legislated in 1909. Last November, an opinion poll of B.C. residents indicated 91% of respondents felt water was the province's most precious resource while 72% said protection of plants, fish and wildlife should have priority regarding decisions on water use, even at the risk of slowing economic growth.
I hope the provincial government will have the results of this poll foremost in mind when drafting new legislation. A new Water Act must provide a firm foundation for wise decisions on water use throughout the next few decades.
The new Water Act is proposed to have a number of policy directions, including the protection of stream health and aquatic environments, the consideration of water in land use decisions, the introduction of more flexibility and efficiency in water allocation, and the regulation of groundwater use. (More information is available at www.livingwatersmart.ca/water-act, where public input can be provided to the blog.)
Protecting stream health will be accomplished by providing so-called instream flow standards when water licences are granted. Maintaining instream flows at varying levels throughout the year can, to a large degree, simulate natural conditions and maintain appropriate conditions for fish survival.
Originally, when water licences were granted years ago, the needs of fish were generally ignored. While requiring instream flows for fish is an excellent idea, there is unrelenting pressure from industry to reduce these flows to a bare minimum. Unfortunately, the proposed Water Act will have instream flows only as guidelines, not as requirements. The new Water Act needs to ensure instream flows are a requirement and will be adequate to meet the diverse needs of the all the flora and fauna that depend on streams and their riparian habitat.
One of the most important initiatives of the new Water Act will be to finally regulate groundwater use. This is the hidden water that lies in aquifers beneath the ground and we draw upon it whenever we pump water from wells.
In the lower Fraser River valley, the municipalities of Chilliwack and Langley use groundwater as a source of drinking water even though contamination of this vital resource by fertilizers and pesticides is a growing concern. Across the province, more than a million people rely on groundwater. In northeast B.C., the increased use of groundwater and disposal of contaminated "fracking" water by the shale gas industry is now a huge concern. Hopefully, the new Water Act will provide adequate regulation of groundwater use and protect it from harmful discharges.
Many people were alarmed when this final round of public consultation for a new Water Act was initiated because new language included an explicit reference to the development of water markets. Once water licences can be traded as a commodity instead of regulated by a provincial water comptroller, there is an immediate tendency for water to be allocated to the highest bidder. Needless to say, the highest bidders are unlikely to include small family farmers who rely on groundwater or others without deep pockets.
(To my mind, a better process to determine water use was the one many people in this community participated in a few years ago when BC Hydro initiated a consultative process to develop a Coquitlam River Water Use Plan. )
We know that global climate change is likely to result in greater water scarcity in dry regions. Thus, I doubt the current practice of granting water licences for 40 years is wise when climate change could diminish water supplies in only a couple of decades. A shorter licence period might make future adjustments easier to implement.
Regardless of your views on water use, the provincial government would like to receive your input on a new Water Act before March 14.
Elaine Golds is a Port Moody environmentalist who is vice-president of Burke Mountain Naturalists, chair of the Colony Farm Park Association and former president of the PoMo Ecological Society.
